Eugene S. Gaffney is an American paleontologist and leading authority on the morphology and evolutionary history of turtles.
Gaffney graduated from Rutgers State University in 1965 and received his PhD in 1969 with a thesis on "The North American Baenoidea and the Cryptodire-Pleurodire Dichotomy" from Columbia University, where he also taught as an adjunct professor for most of his career.
He was hired as Curator of Fossil Reptiles, Amphibians, and Birds in 1970 in the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History.
He retired in 2007 as Curator Emeritus.He has authored over 100 publications on turtle systematics and phylogeny.
[2] He has done fieldwork in Canada and the United States, central Europe, southern Africa, China, Argentina, Brazil, and especially Australia, where he has studied the evolution of the Meiolania, the giant horned turtle.